How Sandra Discovered Aquafit for Seniors: A Fun Workout
Sandra is turning 62 and last winter she experienced a fall getting out of her car.
That was a shocking event for Sandra because shortly after falling on her driveway, Sandra realized she couldn’t get back up. Sandra broke her hip. But did Sandra fall first and then break her hip or did Sandra experience a fracture and then fall?
Thankfully Sandra’s husband was right there and came to her rescue. She was driven to the hospital by ambulance and eventually recovered back to full health.
Sandra’s story is not uncommon. Sadly, many women (and men) experience a fall in older adulthood and come to a realization that physical health is not something that comes as easily as years past.
During her recovery, Sandra thought long and hard about her unexpected fall. In fact, she was experiencing some terrible anxiety about the entire incident and was worried that this could happen again. And what if her husband wasn’t around the next time?
That was her turning point and Sandra came to the decision she needed to take her physical health more seriously. All her life, she knew that fitness was important but she just never put it as a high priority considering she was a dedicated school teacher for 30 years, a busy mom having raised 4 kids, and now a grandmother of 6.
With some online research, she decided on aqua fitness. Her main reason was she wanted low impact training on her joints that would result in strength and aerobic conditioning comparable to a gym routine but without the wear and tear on her knees and especially her hips.
Discover Aquafit: A Fun & Effective Workout
Is aqua fit a good fit for you?
I’m going to say absolutely it’s a great fit for you! It’s a great workout for anyone that wants to build strength, stamina, and general fitness level.
Aqua fit is adaptable to any level of fitness. Each exercise has variations that range from beginner to advanced and you don’t need to be an expert swimmer or a swimmer at all! You can easily crank up the intensity and maintain a low impact environment for your joints because of buoyancy and water resistance.
Aqua Fit in its simplest explanation is fitness in the water. Water provides resistance similar to resistance training on land. Water-based exercises can be adapted to increase the level of intensity with speed, longer levers like straight arms and open palms or the use of paddles and gloves for more drag.
The idea behind HITT (high intensity interval training) can be applied in the water too. So if you’re like my friend Will who I’ll introduce to you shortly, you’ll love a more advanced level of aqua fitness. The most advanced form of fitness in the water is prolonged suspension exercise without any floating aids.
Continuation of Sandra’s Story: Discovering Aquafit
For Sandra, aqua therapy and aqua fitness is excellent for building strength and maintaining healthy bones, joints, and muscles.
Remember when I asked the question, “Did Sandra fall and fracture her hip or did she experience a hip fracture and subsequently fall?” For many, it’s the latter. Often with age, bones weaken and lose density just like muscle mass. Of course, there are hormonal changes that occur, especially in women that lead to reducing bone density, but you can do something about it!
The water is an excellent environment for exercise to build muscle and bone strength but without the increased wear and tear on your joints from traditional on-land routines. It’s all around safer, can be adapted for higher intensity, and it remains an effective workout environment to build strength and condition your body.
Will’s Story: Discovering Aquafit
Will is a friend of mine that hits the gym regularly and he’s quite buff. One day, I invited him to a high-intensity aqua fit class that I was teaching at the pool I worked at. He took me up on the offer and joined my class. Let me tell you, each time I made eye contact with him, I could tell he was pushing his limits and he was impressed at the level of intensity. He came in first thinking that it would be an easy workout. Boy, was he wrong!
Afterwards, he told me that he had no idea that an aqua fit class could be such a great workout! I remember he specifically made reference to the resistance training component when we used paddles for pec flyes, similar to cable chest flyes in the gym, and breaststroke with paddles to target the rhomboid muscles between the shoulder blades.
Sandra’s Progress: Discovering Aquafit
So now let’s take it back to Sandra and find out how she did with aqua fit.
When Sandra committed to regular aqua fit three times per week, she noticed subtle improvements at first…
Things like stamina – she was able to walk more without getting tired as quickly and play more actively with her grandkids.
Her posture seemed to get a little taller and she felt stronger in her core, arms, and legs.
Then, after a couple months of not missing a dedicated class, she noticed that going up stairs was way easier when she visited a friend downtown at her condo building and opted to take the stairwell to the fourth floor. She wasn’t out of breath and her legs felt strong the entire time up the staircase. She also noticed that previous aches and pains were hardly noticeable.
Of all the positive changes she noticed, the best one was her feeling of overcoming the fear and anxiety of falling again. It no longer bothered Sandra and she was confident in her physical health to the point that she wanted to try more advanced levels of aqua fitness as her next goal.
Conclusion: Discover Aquafit – It’s Fun & Effective
Thanks to aqua fitness, Sandra overcame her fear of falling again and my friend Will was pleasantly surprised on how intense and effective water exercises can be.
I’m Justin and I’ve been teaching aqua fitness and aqua therapy for more than 15 years. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and if you’re interested in this type of content, feel free to subscribe to join my mailing list for more related blog posts (and YouTube videos) coming soon! I’ll show you all the right moves for effective water aerobics and resistance training. You’ll love it!
See you soon 😊